As demand has increased for simplified communication, unified messaging systems have been developed and implemented in order to streamline messaging systems. For example, some unified messaging systems allow voice mail, faxes and e-mail to be combined so that users may receive all of these types of communications through a single application.
However, existing unified messaging systems often use software on the e-mail client, which is generally expensive from a support perspective, or require direct connectivity to an e-mail server that hosts the client, which requires that the system have access to the server and know the user's password, in order to synchronize network content with the e-mail infrastructure. In addition, accessing the e-mail servers in conventional network configurations is problematic due to network topology and security issues.